That nagging inner voice insisted that she had found the lost priest Taneeo. Did that fulfill her promise to Stargod Konner?
No, it did not. She still needed to find the bee-kan for Konner. Only she could do that. Her word of honor as a Tracker was at stake. She had to find the bee-kan. Then she would leave. As fast as she could. She would go as far away as she could and never, ever see Konner again.
No good could come from a relationship with a god. Even a temporary relationship. Hanassa, the priest of the god Simurgh, had spread his seed far and wide. No good had come to any of the women he seduced or raped. Unfortunately, or fortunately, most of the children of these liaisons had died young.
Dalleena had decided years ago that she would stay away from gods and their priests.
Resolved, she turned away from her scrutiny of her handprint on the white scales to watch the sunrise.
Konner stood right in front of her.
S’murghit, she had been so absorbed in thought she had not heard him approach. Unforgivable in a Tracker.
He stepped closer. Barely the width of her hand separated them. He bent his head just a little, bringing his mouth level with hers.
She moistened her lips.
“Are you planning on usurping control over my Rover again?” he snarled.
Dalleena reared away from contemplation of his delicious mouth. Her head banged against the solid surface of the dragon.
“Never. The thing is alien and dangerous. I do not know why you put up with the beast,” she returned. Her head hurt. Her scalp tingled. And she’d caught another whisper of the strange feminine voice he’d called “Mum.” What had it said?
Nothing complimentary, she was certain. Mothers never liked other women entering their sons’ lives. Her own grandmother had complained constantly about Dalleena’s mother for as long as she could remember. Right up until they both died in a slave raid led by Hanassa.
“Is the beacon still to the east?” Konner asked. He stepped aside and tapped the white scales in an interesting pattern right beside her handprint. Only after he dropped his hand did she notice a series of bumps and indentations.
The dragon hissed in response to the tattoo he’d beat on its side.
Dalleena jumped back.
The belly opened, like the pupil of a cornered animal’s eye.
But no eye peered out at her from that opening. Just . . . just the inside of a cabin. A richly furnished cabin with soft cushions dyed a blue too vibrant to have come from any plant or mineral she knew, and strange storage chests made of a metal shinier than the new iron, and . . . all manner of things she could not identify.
Her head reeled trying to make sense of it all.
“Well, are you coming with me to find the beacon?” Konner asked. He marched up the two steps to stand in the doorway.
His angry tone shook Dalleena out of her befuddlement.
“The beacon is due east. At the other side of the sea beyond the Great Bay.” She dug in her heels and braced herself, lest he force her into the dragon’s belly.
“I need more information than that, Dalleena.” He stood with hands on hips and a tense posture. “I have never explored the continent across the sea. You have to come with me.”
“Not inside that dragon. I will not be its next meal.”
“Rover doesn’t eat people.” Konner’s entire countenance brightened. His eyes twinkled with mischief and his shoulders relaxed. The laughter in his voice sounded so inviting.
“Come along now. We can’t waste any more time.” Konner held out his hand.
She could not help putting her own hand in his and letting him draw her up the two steps. Her hand lingered in his as she surveyed the inside of the dragon’s belly. Most of what she saw still did not make sense. But she noticed that the too-blue cushions showed fading and wear patterns. The square edges looked frayed. Indentations marked the places where male bottoms had sat too often and too long.
A morsel of pride crept into her posture. She would never allow such wonderful possessions to be treated so carelessly.
“This way.” He tugged on her hand, leading her to the right and the head of the dragon.
Dalleena promised herself she would explore the well-used cabin later. More curiosities awaited. Whatever magic this dragon possessed, it seemed designed to help Konner and his brothers, not devour them.
The Stargod held aside a shiny curtain. It had the same reflective surface as the storage chests. She had presumed it was just another wall. Curious. She fingered it, finding it slick, as if Konner had spread grease upon thin wood shavings. But her fingers came away clean.
What other marvels could Konner show her?
Eyes wide, absorbing as many details as she could, she entered what could only be a sacred temple. Soft flames from hidden candles glowed and blinked at her. Colored flames! Red and blue and yellow as well as the normal green. But not a normal green. Deeper and more intense than a saber fern just washed with spring dew.
Dalleena resisted the need to drop to her knees in adoration of whatever god Konner had dedicated this temple to.
But why would he worship another god? He was one of the three Stargods. He deserved adoration. He did not need to give it.
“Sit,” he ordered her, pointing to a seat formed of metal and covered with the same worn blue cushions as the cabin.
Dalleena plunked herself down on the floor of the temple. She wrapped her arms around her knees and remained motionless. She just could not bring herself to sit where a Stargod had been enthroned within his own temple.
Stargod Konner frowned at her. “Don’t be stubborn and ridiculous. I said sit and I mean there.” He glared. His intensely blue eyes—the same color as the cushions before they had faded?—glinted with emotions Dalleena could not read.
She swallowed protestations of unworthiness. Somehow she sensed he would not respect groveling.
Hesitantly, she rolled upward without touching anything. Two short sidesteps took her to the throne. It swung beneath her, rotating in a full circle. She popped back onto her feet. “Is it alive?”
Konner chuckled briefly. Then he fiddled with something at the base of the chair. “Try it again. The chair won’t bite.” He gestured grandly for her to obey.
Dalleena bit her lip and lowered herself into the chair. She kept her weight balanced on her toes, ready to flee if anything moved.
The chair accepted her weight. Indeed, it welcomed her, snuggling to fit her frame.
“Now buckle up. I don’t want you flying about the cockpit.” Konner pulled long thongs about as wide as his palm over her shoulders and then fastened them to the chair between her legs. Then he sat and produced two more of the broad, flat thongs from the back of his own chair and “buckled up” himself.
He turned his attention to the altar of colored flames. As he touched first one and then another, the sounds within the dragon changed. It rumbled. It vibrated. The sunlight coming in through its eyes dimmed. If the thongs had not held her in place, she would have bolted. She could not. So she gripped the edges of her chair with her hands. Her knuckles turned white. Her fingers grew numb. And still she clung to the chair.
Then a tremendous weight pressed against her chest. She could not breathe. The meadow outside the dragon’s eyes rushed past, faster than any person could run. Faster than a bird could fly. Faster than . . . than she could pray to whatever god might listen, even the hated and feared Simurgh.
“Easy, Dalleena. The worst will be over in a minute.”
But it wasn’t. On and on they sped. Faster and faster. The pressure increased. The landscape flitting past and . . . gulp . . . below them made her dizzy.
Desperate to maintain some sort of equilibrium she fastened her gaze on Konner. He remained solid, in place, and seemingly untouched by the terrible forces assailing them.
And then, with a jolting suddenness, they broke free of the pressure. And floated above the land.
“Is that the river?” Amazement over
came her fears. Birds flew. Dragons flew. Why not this bizarre dragon that was not a dragon. She had to trust that the beast would not spit her out to fall back to the land. She had to trust Stargod Konner to keep her safe.
“Yes, that is the river that gives the Coros life. And up ahead, that broad expanse of blue, that is the Great Bay.” Konner pointed with his left hand, keeping his right on the array of winking lights.
“Will we see a behemoth?” She had only heard tales of the monster fish that had been known to take bites out of frail fishing boats, but when captured, could feed a large village for a week. And its thick hide could be tanned like leather to make warm winter clothing for most of a village as well.
“I doubt we’ll see one, unless it comes to the surface.” Konner frowned. His eyes clouded. “Can you point toward the beacon?”
Dalleena stretched out her hand, palm forward. She concentrated for a long moment on the small thing made of the same material as the hide of the white dragon. At first nothing. Then the tingling began in the center of her palm. Faint at first, then stronger.
“That way.” She pointed straight across the endless blue of the bay that continued on into the distance until it met the sky. She shook her head with the enormity of their search. No one she had ever heard of had sailed beyond the reaches of the Great Bay.
Konner made a few adjustments to the lights beneath the flat surface in front of him. The nose of their dragon shifted slightly until it aimed precisely where her finger pointed.
“Will we fly to the edge and fall off?”
“No.” Konner flashed her a grin. “The world is like a ball. There is no edge. A special energy called gravity keeps us anchored to the land so we do not fall off.”
“But we are not on the land. We fly above it.”
“I could fly up above the gravity.” He pointed up through the top of the dragon. “I have a bigger ship up there that travels the stars. Rover isn’t big enough or powerful enough to go beyond this planet.”
“Oh.” She did not know if she understood all that. The knowledge that Stargod Konner and his brothers could leave this place so easily only confirmed her hesitation to accept friendship or anything else from them. She must fulfill her duty. Nothing more.
She looked through the dragon eyes below them. The land gave way to the bay. She could see the muddy bottom beneath the surf. Must be high tide. Then she discerned the deeper channels through the mudflats. A miniature boat floated on the water, following one of those channels. Was that one of the waterdogs in the bow? The waterdogs had talents akin to Trackers. They directed the fishermen through deep water so that they did not run aground on the mud.
“They look so small. And growing smaller.”
“Distance. A tree at the edge of the meadow looks no bigger than your hand. As you walk closer, it gets bigger and bigger. We are very far away.”
“How far?”
“Higher than ten of the tallest trees you have ever seen.”
She gulped. But her curiosity overcame her misgivings. A wispy cloud passed beneath them. More clouds appeared on the left, near the horizon. Dark clouds. “It will rain tomorrow.”
“Probably,” he grunted. “I hope Kim gets the last of the harvest in today.”
They traveled on in silence for a long time. Dalleena had dozens of questions. He answered them politely. But she sensed he never gave her all of the information she needed to fully understand.
After a time she held up her arm again and scanned for the beacon. They came closer. But it was still very far away. She directed him to aim a little to the south. He did so.
Another space of time passed. They still traversed the ocean. She scanned again. Instead of the tingle in her palm, her entire body began to shake. Her muscles jerked. Forward and back, side to side. She swayed as far as the thongs allowed her.
“What?” Konner asked. He released his own restraints and jumped to hold her in place. “Dalleena! What’s wrong.”
Her teeth chattered. She clamped her mouth shut, lest she bite her tongue. Her throat swelled with the need to speak. To warn Konner of the strange apparition that pulled at her senses, demanding she find it.
“Up there,” she finally managed. “In the sky. Beyond the sun. Something is lost. Something bigger than a behemoth. Much bigger than this dragon.”
Then she forced her arm down and gripped the edges of the chair.
Konner looked up to the sky, then back to the flashing lights. Many more lights than before.
And then the strange voice of his mother spoke. “Warning. Open jump point detected. Unfriendly vessel approaches.”
“You spotted the IMPs before my sensors did!”
CHAPTER 11
KONNER TOUCHED two interfaces and set the shuttle on autopilot. Then he returned his attention to Dalleena.
“How did you do that?” He ran his fingers over her damp brow and along the stress creases above her nose. Worry made him clench his jaw. He had to show a calm face. He had to keep her from going into hysterics.
“I do not know.” She stared at her palm. The skin looked red, not quite raw, but definitely painful. “It burns,” she whispered.
He should have known Dalleena would not panic.
“I have some salve for that.” Konner released the first aid kit from its place beneath the console. His hands felt empty and cold when he released her, but the kit was awkward to haul into position with only one free.
A quick swipe of Electro-Steri® killed off any stray bacteria. St. Bridget only knew how much bizarre bacteria lurked on the planet. Then a squirt of cooling gel sealed the burn.
“What miracle is this?” She held up the hand. Already the redness faded as the medicines leeched the heat out of her skin before it could blister.
“Just keep your hand up, above your heart, for a few seconds until the gel dries.” He held her hand in position. The softness of her skin despite the calluses sent micro amps of electricity up his arm and into his heart.
He jerked his gaze away from contact with her big brown eyes before he lost himself entirely.
“Is this strange ship in the skies friend or foe?” Dalleena asked. Ever practical. Ever logical. She returned to the cause of her hurt rather than dwelling on the injury itself.
Melinda, Konner’s ex, had taken to her bed for three days when a splinter lodged in her finger on their honeymoon.
“Most likely a foe.” Konner let go of his memories of Melinda gratefully. As soon as he retrieved his son from her ungentle custody, he need never think of her again.
He could concentrate on Dalleena.
No. His place was not on this benighted planet. He belonged to the stars. He would not enter into a relationship knowing he had to leave very soon.
“What must we do to evade this enemy? Or defeat it?” Dalleena asked.
“Our first step is to find that beacon and destroy it.” Konner returned to his seat and put the shuttle back on manual control. Without hesitation, he boosted the speed. “The heck with fuel conservation.” He pushed the speed up another notch. “If we don’t kill the beacon fast, we won’t need the shuttle. We’ll need holes in the ground to hide in.”
“I know of a number of caves on the headlands at the south end of the bay. Children often get lost exploring them. ‘Tis up to me to find them when they go too deep,” Dalleena offered.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The coastline came into view. Konner called up the maps from Kim’s initial survey of the planet. The central continent dominated the scans. It spread across nearly an entire hemisphere north and east of here. Only a few large islands and semicontinents, like the land of the Coros, dotted the ocean that covered the rest of the planet.
Konner and his brothers had dismissed the continent because the clusters of human habitation hugged the coasts with little or nothing in between. The climate of the interior appeared barely hospitable to human life.
He shed altitude. Somehow the initial survey had not picke
d up on the lively boat traffic that now came into view.
“Now where?” Konner asked. He might be close enough to pick up the beacon on one of his scanners. But he had to stay high enough not to disturb any locals.
“North. At the head of that bay.” Dalleena pointed and he changed course.
The scanners spit images and a data stream into the interface. Then the beacon blipped. An obscure frequency well below normal scan ranges. If the IMPs did not know where to look, they would never find it. Another strike against Melinda. She had to have sold the frequency to his enemies.
Konner suppressed the boiling in his blood. Giving in to his anger with Melinda would not help him this minute. He needed to save his emotions and be in control for the court date.
And use his copy of the prenuptial agreement she had not honored.
He locked in the frequency and pinpointed it on the map the computer formed, layer by layer as he circled the port.
“Just wonderful.” He nearly slammed his fist into the console. “An entire city full of people.” Several thousand crammed into a tiny space. Any one of them could have the beacon.
Frantically, he sought a landing place beyond the hordes of people, but close enough to walk into the city.
For some reason, the city seemed to be confined within a stout wall. It formed a large half circle around the harbor. Warrens of alleyways filled the enclosure. Buildings piled one atop another, threatening to tumble in a stiff breeze. The scanners picked up a large concentration of pollution in the water of the harbor. Mostly human and animal waste.
Konner wrinkled his nose at the thought of the stench of the city. Most civilized worlds were as crowded as this place. But air scrubbers built into the protective atmosphere domes replaced unpleasant odors with a citrus scent. Sewage disposal remained unseen and unsmelled, returning sanitized minerals and liquids to the environment and food tanks.
“Why do they not move beyond the wall?” Dalleena asked. She shifted her gaze from the growing map to the knot of dark brown below them.
Smart girl to have figured out the relationship between the map and the real view.
“I’m guessing the wall is protection. Marauders, dust storms, large predators. Something mean and dangerous lives in the steppes beyond that wall.”
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